By Nana Oye Gyimah
Cape Coast, Aug. 9, GNA – A 36-year-old labourer, Frank Koomson, accused of defiling a 14-year-old girl, gained his freedom on Tuesday, when a Circuit Court in Cape Coast acquitted and discharged him.
Soon after the judgement was pronounced, Koomson filled with excitement, knelt with tears, looked up and screamed, “thank you God.”
Koomson had pleaded not guilty to the charge of defilement when he first appeared before the Court in January this year and was remanded in police custody.
Discharging him, Mrs Dorinda Smith Arthur, the presiding Judge, said she was acquitting Koomson of the crime because the girl had been consistent that she had never had any sexual relationship with him right from the beginning of the trial and that the investigators could not prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.
She, therefore, charged them to do their homework well the next time around.
Turning on Koomson, Mrs Smith Arthur warned him to immediately send the girl packing back to her parent’s house and stay off her affairs.
“If you have ever committed this crime, the law would catch up with you someday, so do not think you are a winner, you have not won,” she cautioned him.
Earlier in his explanation to the court during his trial, Koomson said he had been taking care of the girl for two years since her mother shunned responsibility.
“Sometimes I invite her over to run errands for me too, I have assisted her financially, especially in her education, for the past two years and there is nothing more to it,” he explained.
Inspector Yakubu Iddrisu, the prosecutor, said Madam Esi Taylor, the mother of the girl and the complainant resides in the same vicinity at Abura Dunkwa in the Abura- Asebu-Kwamankese (AAK) district of the Central Region.
According to him, the girl had been staying with Koomson since May last year and on Tuesday August 17, 2021, she returned home while her mother was away and picked her belongings.
All attempts by her mother to convince her to go back home proved futile while Koomson also refused to let her go.
Inspector Yakubu said on Monday January 10, 2022, Koomson was arrested, and the case was referred to the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) in Cape Coast.
However, the girl countered the prosecution’s assertions and told the court that her mother shirked her responsibilities towards her two years since her father passed on .
“Mr Koomson has been my support system; he feeds me clothes me and finance my schooling. I only run errands for him in return,” she said during the trial.
GNA